Imen Gafsi Ep Bougobba- Manager Ingénierie & Développement, Chifco

Chifco | CHIFCO IN MEDIA

Medias

A budding company] needs at the beginning to ensure [that] money comes in,” said Amine Chouaib who launched Chifco, a company dedicated to connected devices, in 2010. To survive the first few years, he had to find other sources of income, like consulting. The company is now in the green thanks to the sale of its products and services to partner companies.

"Tunisian technology company Chifco developed a Home Automation product, Smart Life, which “helps users discover which of their equipment consumes more energy, follow up on their consumption daily, and read their atmosphere to give them better ways of using electricity” explains Reem Bolger, Chifco’s Chief Marketing Officer."

"Tunisian technology company Chifco developed a Home Automation product, Smart Life, which “helps users discover which of their equipment consumes more energy, follow up on their consumption daily, and read their atmosphere to give them better ways of using electricity” explains Reem Bolger, Chifco’s Chief Marketing Officer."

Mohamed Bridaa- Country Manager- MICROSOFT Tunisia

Chifco | CHIFCO BLOG

Blog

AI takes the wheel – Yay or Nay ?

2 février 2018 Chifco

In 2017 Artificial intelligence “AI” was everywhere. It seemed like companies started adopting “AI”, including it in their value chain. From the beginning of 2018, “AI” become increasingly visible: From the opening of a second European center for artificial intelligence by Google, the big investment of 10 million dollars in artificial intelligence in France by Facebook, to the organization of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, an exhibition that showcased all startups’ and companies’ gadgets, devices and applications using AI technology.

How will Artificial Intelligence and smart devices likely revolutionize the way we live, move from a place to another and ship goods? The rise of driverless cars and soon air travel, freight shipping, and even public transport could be all revolutionized by the internet of things, used in combination with technologies like AI and Big Data.

By 2020, there could be 10 million self-driving cars on the road. Companies like Uber, Daimler Trucks, and Einride have already launched fully-autonomous freight shipping trucks. While this phenomenon may sound futuristic and cool, it will increase the likelihood that innocent citizens will have their privacy invaded. With cars gathering data on your destination, what you’re doing or saying and even your health state, your life will be no longer be a mystery to your fleet .Nonetheless to say that we are heading for a dystopian future with mass unemployment. It has been estimated that one third of the people in any advanced economy are engaged in transportation and their jobs will be gone as soon as self-driving cars are widely adopted.

But it is worth mentioning that the near future is very exciting, thus bringing a lot of benefits. Connected vehicles will save lives and be a solution for accidents caused by inattentive drivers thanks to sensors, cameras and other gadgets. Soon, most of people may replace their own cars, with driverless cars which will transport them to their destination and then go to fetch the next customer. People will no longer spend 1h per day stuck in traffic being stressed and in rush. In contrast, journeys will be relaxing, entertaining and friendly, providing access to the internet, video games, tchat …

AI benefits will also create new jobs, so what future jobs do you think will exist and will companies need in 2025?

A look back at Chifco’s best 2017 moments

28 décembre 2017 Chifco

2017 has been a challenging journey, full of inspiring achievements and moments of genuine hope for all of us. We had enjoyable moments and hard ones. But in the end, we rised and made it through 2017. One more year of arduous missions and successful projects!
By this special article, we want to thank every team member, business partner, organization, friend and family member that helped us to move forward and find a way to success. This wouldn’t have been possible without your support.
Let’s take a quick glance at some of the most 2017 memorable achievements within Chifco:

1. Becoming an iot operator

After many efforts and struggles, Chifco finally obtained its license as an operator dedicated to the internet of things in Tunisia. The license enables every company to set up a network for connected things and implement new intelligent solutions for Tunisians.

2. Chifco under the spotlight

Chifco alongside its business partner J.Walter Thompson North Africa were shortlisted in the “Retail & Luxury” and “Shopper Marketing” categories thanks to the “Monoprix Go” campaign based on a augmented Reality Game. For those who don’t know it yet, the Effie Awards are prizes given by the American Marketing Association for the best advertising campaigns of the year.

And last but not least, Chifco received the HR prize, as an award for its practices in the management and development of human capital within its organization.

3. An international presence

After the launch of the Smart Home solution in the Maldives, Chifco participated in many conferences and business exhibition fairs as part of its development strategy: Le Bourget in Paris, Vivatech at Les Portes de Versailles in Paris and the NxSE Forum at the Reunion Island.

4.New partnerships

Chifco, Tunisie Telecom and the Tunisian transport company are willing to equip Tunisian buses with a Wifi connection. The project is real and studies are being conducted to fulfill every passenger’s dream: connect while taking the bus.

Chifco had a great year, but it’s not over. The question we should ask ourselves is “what 2018 is hiding from us?” You will hear from us again very soon.

Birth of a startup

5 décembre 2017 Chifco

Chifco is a Tunisian tech startup specialized in the Internet of Things, Machine Learning and data processing. It was founded by Amine Chouaieb in 2011, who at the time dreamed of changing the world by creating a startup like the Sillicon Valley ones. Therefore, he developed his very first prototype in 2011, while studying in France. He was 25 at that time.

While many startups today seek large amounts of institutional capital, Amine funded the startup debut phase entirely from his own resources, and later solicited capital from family and friends, which helped guide Chifco in advisory roles, and later expand internationally to Tunisia, France and Algeria.

Little by little, Chifco began to grow, and to recruit new people. Today, Chifco is composed of 25 young persons, from different backgrounds but with the same vision: make people’s life easier and smarter.

Mission

Chifco’s goal is to make people’s life easier and smarter thanks to connected things, Big Data, Machine Learning and Business Intelligence. These technologies can lead to huge transformations in behaviors and uses. On this basis, our startup adapted its offer to the needs of the users.

Offering new solutions

Since 2011, we developed and commercialized smart solutions like Home automation solutions, GPS Tracking solutions … But also conceived complete solutions based on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. We build algorithms that allow computers to learn how to perform tasks from data instead of requiring a programmer to write code for those tasks. This is an opportunity for businesses regarding the fact that it is a faster and more efficient approach.

Furthermore, we aim to delight our customers with a personalized and optimized experience through Big Data solutions. No matter the size of the data, our Cloud solution does the entire job: collecting, analyzing and processing.

We also provide Predictive Business Intelligence solutions. We build tools that use all the collected data to forecast growth, ROI for marketing, sales, customer service…Businesses are now able to turn data into better decision-making capabilities.

Thanks to a team of developers, UX designers, consultants, we help businesses to predict customer needs and usages, increase their workforce productivity and even reduce their maintenance costs.

Having a constant thirst for new things, we developed our very first Pokémon Go-style augmented-reality mobile app as part of a commercial event, in partnership with Monoprix Tunisia and J.Walter Thompson North Africa. The game permitted us to be shortlisted at the MENA Effie awards, in the “Retail Luxury” and “Shopper Marketing” categories.

Thinking towards the future

For the first time in Tunisia, connected buses will see the light of day thanks to a partnership between Chifco, the Tunisian National Society of Interurban Transport, and Tunisie Telecom, one of the giants of Telecom in Tunisia. Connected Buses will offer free Wifi to passengers, thus allowing them to surf the web, listen to music, and even watch movies while taking the bus. The project will be implemented in 2018 in Tunisia, then in Algeria with Djezzy the telecom operator as a partner.

As a growing startup, we plan to expand our activities to the EMEA region by finding new partners and strengthening our activities on different areas.